Artemis and her dog are left deserted and alone with winter approaching, in the Adirondacks, with only a prayer and a hope for survival. Real and imaginary fears cloud Artemis's judgment, but not her desire to reach the county road and safety.
Author D.L. Luke vividly portrays the intriguing tale of one of life's greatest fears-being lost in the wilderness. In Adirondacks, Artemis faces not only her present fears but fears for the future with only her dog and past experiences to guide her through her lonely introspection, her strengths, and weaknesses.
Artemis and her dog are left deserted and alone with winter approaching, in the Adirondacks, with only a prayer and a hope for survival. Real and imaginary fears cloud Artemis's judgment, but not her desire to reach the county road and safety.
"D.L. Luke does a wonderful job capturing the atmosphere of the Adirondacks and describes the wilderness with precision. A reader can almost smell the balsam. The author manages to fairly seamlessly insert some pertinent history of the Adirondacks as a locale for healing and allows flashbacks to the narrator’s time at her grandmother’s cabin to flow naturally as Artemis searches for a way back to civilization." - Adirondacks, Daily Enterprise
GUEST POST
One of the prevailing themes, besides the main character learning how to make it in the world alone, without the support from a man, is the significance of land preservation. Although the book is fiction, the story was wrapped around autobiographic events that had a profound impact on me, which I wish to share.
Grace and Herbert Groening, my grandparents, owned a rustic cottage home on three and a half acres of land in Warrensburg, in the Adirondacks. Unfortunately when the last survivor, my grandmother passed away, my parents clear-cut the land, tearing down not only the A-Framed house with spectacular views of the mountains, but the white pines, tall as St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
I am reading a brief passage from Adirondacks Artemis this Friday, July 14th at the Historic Hand House for Elizabethtown’s Day Celebration and Recognition of Local Authors; and since Governor Cuomo proposes the ‘Gateway to the Adirondacks,’ economic initiative to reuse and redevelop the site of the former ‘Frontier Town,’ an abandoned western theme park, at exit 29, where the High Peaks Wilderness reside, I am focusing the rest of my presentation on presenting the facts published from various newspapers across the state. I am encouraging public participation, urging lawmakers, environmentalists, activities, local artisans, and business leaders to host town meetings and have open discussion if we wish to preserve the Adirondack wilderness and succeed at developing a ‘new’ Frontier Town.
The heart of land preservation from my book:
Before she gave up and paid attention to the day performing its magic trick of disappearing night into thin air. She plopped herself down on the foldable chair, defeated and aggravated that she’d have to sit and wait. Patience was a virtue that did not come natural to her; but, she knew the importance of being grounded, and refrained from freaking out.
Instead, her trepidation decided to tear open an old, painful wound: one of the reasons among many that made her decide to sever all ties with her parents. Her grandmother’s home with an overhang on the top floor, in the master bedroom, had a balcony, above the wrap-around porch with mountainous views of the Adirondacks. When Mary passed away in July, the house and the white pines, tall as St. Patrick’s Cathedral, were torn down end of summer.
The real Darth Vader in her eyes was her father, the engineer who rebuilt, the mastermind who leveled and gradually destroyed two out of the three and a half acres of woods. His acts of war against the land would have turned her grandparents over in their graves if they knew the ultimate outcome of what happened to their rustic summer getaway.
On the verge of tears as if this all happened yesterday instead of fifteen years ago, Artemis knew this sort of pain was unfortunately the truth, a pain she felt inside that could never be healed. From her perspective, her parent’s irrevocable actions were for materialistic wealth and personal gain. She played dead with them for nearly a decade after divorce when a new life took hold and changed her forever.
About the author
D.L. Luke, author of the children’s book B: The Tale of the Halloween Cat, also known as Diana Denner, was born in New York City in 1965. A published short-story writer and painter, Denner earned a free education and graduated in 1993 from The New School in New York City with a Bachelor’s of Arts in
Fiction Writing and American Literature.
Editor for New York State Watch, Denner also works as a community inclusion counselor for ARC Rensselaer. She owns an old Dutch Colonial home in upstate New York and is working on the completion of her second children’s book How the Dog Saved the Squirrel from the Hawk. She is a member of Center for Mark Twain Studies and Hoboken Historical Museum.
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